[hwillis]

You and jloveless have been commendably open in this submission. Personally, I think that if you're not destroying someone's limited data then you're meeting what should be expected of you. Demanding that you deliver your content in a certain way is silly IMO.

Say I have a web application that displays a complex rendering of millions of constantly changing points, and for some reason it's very expensive for me to do computing. However it's easy to write some javascript that renders the millions of points on the user's computer. It's absurd to say I'm being unreasonable by streaming more data to the user instead of rendering frames and streaming video. Using my upload speed is annoying, but it's still stupid to pretend that using a website is entirely one-sided. It's like complaining about ad bandwidth.

Abuse is one thing, but this isn't categorically bad. Plus, it's really cool!

[jloveless]

Thank you! We work _really_ hard to ensure we're staying off CPU, managing disk, and making every replication event count (generally intra-ASN). But it's also really valuable for our NGO clients (and other non profits). My personal favorite is an aide program where they literally bring a Supernode on a laptop, setup a WiFi[1] point in the middle of no-where and can support a fully interactive site for refugee's who have devices when they reach the camp. They can then find out where they are, and what's going on - and you can power a surprisingly large site from a single laptop . It's also really helpful in places like sub-Sahara Africa where in region bandwidth capacity _dramatically_ outstrips off country bandwidth.

[1] http://www.meshpoint.me/

[hwillis]

That's fantastic! I have a personal vendetta against heavy websites specifically because of how unusable they are in remote countries, so that sounds just fucking awesome to me.

[cat199]

> Demanding that you deliver your content in a certain way is silly IMO.

Perhaps, but expecting that visiting a website implies that my computer is not transparently inserted into another companies CDN distribution scheme is not..

via: https://edgemesh.com/product

" ClientRecieve & Render

When a user visit's an edgemesh enabled site their browser begins to execute the client side Smart Mesh™ accelerator. This code uses our patent pending distribution method to transparently and seamlessly join the edgemesh overlay network. While the your web page assets are requested, the client side code analyzes the response time from your servers to the browser and will optimally decide when to request assets (images, videos, etc.) from the mesh network vs. fetching the assets from your server as normal. If the client obtains the assets from your servers, it alerts the Hub process to store these new assets on the mesh. Best of all, this dynamic crawling of your webpage means no more management of cache settings, even on dynamic content.

Smart Mesh™ ensures your users always have the most recent copies of the most requested assets, automagically. "

" HubMesh & Store

The Hub process is a client side Javascript engine which loads in parallel to the user's page load process. The Hub is the client side brains behind edgemesh, and allows the browser to effectively pre-cache content. The Hub communicates with the edgemesh signal servers and gets the optimal list of assets for this browser. Unlike simple peer enhanced solutions, the Hub allows for Cross Origin asset replication.

For example, if your users are viewing https://example.com the Hub process allows their browser to request cached assets from other active edgemesh users - even those currently viewing other sites! The Hub intelligently replicates the edge caches across geographies and networks, and in most cases ensures your visitors have a local copy of your content before they even know they need it. Best of all, the Hub ensures that your site joins the millions of other mesh enabled users - allowing you to tap into the colocated acceleration of peers across the entire community. "

Not quite sure how this isn't that much different than a JS based Bot client / trojan horse TBH, although the traffic isn't officially "malicious", but rather part of some 'innovative and disruptive new startup tech'..

I will look forward to see this go the way of the Bonzi Buddy and Clippy.